With government taking an overly cautious approach to reopening international travel and with the current green list representing only 1.7% of 2019 passenger numbers, there is a real risk that summer 2021 is as bad or worse than summer 2020. In 2020, there were significantly more countries on the travel corridor list compared to what is expected for summer 2021 under the current traffic-light system. Thanks to the larger numbers of countries with a travel corridor, passenger numbers peaked at 22% of 2019 levels in August 2020.
Even with the more liberal travel approach in 2020, UK airports lost out on £2.6bn revenue between April to September 2020. With passenger numbers expected to be at best similar but most likely worse, airports stand to lose at least another £2.6bn in revenue again this year.
Commenting, Airport Operators Association Chief Executive Karen Dee said:
“The Government’s overly cautious approach to reopening travel has real-world consequences for the 1.6m jobs in the UK aviation and tourism industries that rely on aviation having a meaningful restart.
“Unless the Government makes a meaningful restart of aviation possible by extending the green list at the next review, moving to rapid and affordable tests for returning travellers and following the examples of the EU and the US by reducing restrictions on fully vaccinated passengers, aviation is in for an extremely difficult summer.
“Airports have suffered blow after blow since the start of the pandemic. If the Government decides it cannot reopen travel more meaningfully, then they should stand ready to give substantial financial compensation to airports and others in aviation and tourism. As airports remain open for critical services, support should include operational costs, such as policing, air traffic and CAA regulatory costs, and extending business rate relief in full until the end of the tax year.
“With the rest of the economy having a real opportunity to return to some normality, jobs in businesses across the economy that need air connectivity for their success are at risk. The Government cannot afford to let those go.”
ENDS
